You know you’re a homeschooler when you make your kids write a report even about their fun family excursion. We schooled every day this week except for Tuesday, when we went out for my birthday. But I brought along paper and pen for Caleb to do his nature study drawing while at the snake and bird park. He chose to draw the ostrich, and Daddy chose to help at the end.
Caleb is proceeding well in language arts, ahead in phonics and his workbooks and on track in spelling and writing. He’s not struggling as much with cursive this year as I had feared. This week we added the +8 facts to his addition repertoire and will continue into next week with them. We enjoy Math U See’s math songs; I imagine they would be a great supplement for any math curriculum.
We are having the most fun in school with science and history. I try to get all the necessary subjects done in the morning and do history, science, or art during the others’ naptime. Sometimes Colin is awake and enjoys science as well.
This week we read Tutankhamen’s Gift to coincide with our studies on the New Kingdom of Egypt. Caleb pretended to be Howard Carter and found and labeled “treasure” that I had “buried” somewhere in the house. I sneaked in a piece of American candy his Grandpa sent to make it seem a little more like real treasure.
He was so excited to be an archaeologist on a treasure hunt!
We made a homemade thermometer and did another neat experiment about air pressure for science. Caleb finished recording two weeks of weather. I think it’s neat that we recorded the weather during such a memorable rainfall and will have that in his science notebook forever! We read Weather Words, finishing up our unit study on the second day of creation, the atmosphere.
Our thermometer
We did manage to get some drawing in today and remembered to practice Tsonga every day. Caleb and Colin listened to the oboe this week—a beautiful, professional version, not a beginner goose-honk one. 🙂 Colin finished the letters F and G this week.
Carson’s new ability to crawl is making life gnarlier. He’s so cute though, I forgive him. And Callie raids the food pantry whenever I’m not looking. She would rather skip breakfast and steal Marie biscuits (our version of graham cracker) and marshmallows or raisins (my rewards for good schoolwork) all morning.
I finally caught up on laundry after our ten days of rainfall.
We had to laugh this morning when the consulate called us to see if we were “all right from the flood” (5 days afterward!) They established us this year as the contact point for the Americans in our area—I’m not sure who that entails, except for our teammates, who were not jealous of the honor bestowed on us. They also asked after our teammates, slaughtering their names. “And the Schlelkjaeaeriuqiknb af? Are they fine?” We reassured them that they are in America right now.
Ever since the catastrophe earlier this year when some Arabs killed an ambassador without appropriate safety precautions taken from Obama, they have seemed much more careful about checking on citizens (this makes twice). We never heard from them before. Seth’s annoyed by big government, but I find it reassuring. I think the safety of American citizens abroad should be high on the job description list for an American consulate.
Please pray with us to find accommodations for our Bible Institute students. Seth had a contact earlier this week, but the place was taken by another before he confirmed it. He spent another day in town today trying to find a place and has a potential room.
How was your week? Are you “all right” from whatever “floods” you might be going through?
Ita Vita 
We had the throw ups, by one child here, but have recovered. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. 🙂
Oh not nice! How terrible. Glad you’re getting over it, and only one child got it so far!
Picked up a virus that’s been going around the neighborhood, but not too bad.
I’m intrigued by the Math U See songs–are they really good? I tried out a CD once from someone else and it was horrible! 🙂 We could really use a good resource for memorizing math tables!
Aw, hate being sick!
MUS songs–“good” is a subjective term. 😉 I find them helpful and at a fairly cheap price to help for both addition and mutliplication. I just listened to the CD for the first time today. Being a former piano major, I have just played them myself with the kids up till now. 😉 They give a book along with the CD. The CD had a simple piano arrangement with a small children’s group singing . They sound like normal children who can sing on tune. Not really notable as a production in itself. It certainly wouldn’t win music awards. But it does use well-known tunes and isn’t terribly annoying or hokey. I like it! Gives the option of Bible tunes or science/literature tunes, all in the same book/CD. What didn’t you like about your former option?